ANTI-AMERICANISM

About a year ago I wrote a letter to Business Traveller Asia-Pacific expressing my views on North American carriers’ complaints regarding Middle Eastern airlines. The views I expressed then about passengers preferring Middle Eastern carriers (and basically anything other than US carriers) have just been confirmed and underlined by the experience I had a few months ago flying from Miami to London Heathrow with American Airlines.

Having arrived in Miami from St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, I had a scheduled connection time of 1 hour and 40 minutes until my flight to London – perfect!

The connection time was just enough for me to catch a quick snack. Arriving at the announced boarding gate, I was advised that the gate had since changed. Then, after getting to the new gate, I found out that the first aircraft had mechanical problems. Flight AA38 was originally scheduled to depart at 2025, and that time came and went without any announcements until, suddenly, boarding started, using the inefficient group system they apply.

Halfway through, the boarding process was stopped and the rest of the guests, including me, were left standing at the gate for a long time without any explanation. Eventually, we were told to take a seat back outside the gate and were left to wait yet again. All of a sudden, all the passengers who had already boarded were taken off the aircraft and, again, we were left sitting there with no explanation. After some time, boarding started once more, but by now it was clear to me that I would miss my connection in Heathrow – I was flying to Copenhagen.

When we were finally on board, the captain explained what had happened. The aircraft that had replaced the broken-down machine was not checked for a transatlantic flight and had to be certified before we could take off – three hours late.

One could reasonably expect some special service given the circumstances, but I was again disappointed. The meals that were served were extremely basic and of poor quality. The wines were horrible to the extent I ended up taking my glass of wine to the lavatory, as it was not collected, and threw it down the toilet. From then on, we didn’t see the cabin crew at all throughout the rest of the f light, until a disgusting “breakfast” was placed on the tray table. Other airlines would have at least one cabin attendant walk through the cabin on a regular basis offering water, juice, sodas and snacks, but American Airlines did nothing like that. We were left entirely alone, confirming my opinion that they are so full of themselves that they think passengers exist for them, not the other way around. Other airlines train their crews to smile and be courteous to passengers. I did not see one single smile over the more than eight hours I spent on that f light – just crew members who seemed to want to be anywhere else but on flight AA38 supposedly serving passengers.

This experience confirms my previously stated opinion that North American carriers need to understand what quality service is like and that passengers will select airlines that provide quality service. That is definitely what I will be doing.

Jeff Carswell, Denmark